


message in a bottle

by swallowthewhale



Series: Lemon Dreams [13]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: and a lot of wishful thinking, little bit of s4 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11682012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowthewhale/pseuds/swallowthewhale
Summary: Cisco poured all his inappropriate feelings for Caitlin into a little bottle in the corner of his heart six years ago and has been letting it collect dust since. But ever since she got back from her summer of soul-searching, that bottle's been teetering on the edge of breaking open and letting all of Cisco's carefully hidden feelings show.





	message in a bottle

**Author's Note:**

> For an anon's request: Could I request a killervibe fic where Cisco is trying to tell Caitlin his feelings for her, but instead he just goest full flirtation on her at every occasion?
> 
> I think I may have completely missed the mark, and this ended up not only longer, but much less funny and much more sappy than I intended. Cisco just really didn't want to go full-on flirtation with Caitlin, apparently. I might do a companion role-reversal piece where Caitlin (maybe as Killer Frost?) is super flirty with Cisco and he gets flustered as shit. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Considering Cisco has been dealing with bottling these feelings up for six years, they’ve come uncomfortably close to spilling out way too many times in the past month. Maybe it’s the fundamental way in which their friendship has shifted. She’s still serious and logical, she still shreds Cisco’s half-thought out and often stupid ideas to pieces, she’s still really good at finding him and calming him down when he’s upset. But now she sits hip to hip with him on movie nights, and now she kisses his cheek when he brings her tea, and now she takes his hand when they visit Dante and Ronnie in the cemetery. And every time she comes closer, the little bottle threatens to topple over.

And Cisco can’t help but let himself flirt with danger.

Caitlin bumps shoulders with him as he’s tweaking a new power dampening device. “Hey.”

He bumps her back. “I’m almost done.”

She sighs. “Who knew a meta that can turn into a hamster could be so hard to catch?”

Cisco points his screwdriver at her. “We are so watching Sky High next movie night.” He tilts his head. “You know, you actually look kinda like the girl in that.”

She narrows her eyes. “You say that all the time, and I never see it.”

“That’s because you’re prettier,” he says, grinning. “What are you doing this weekend?”

Caitlin huffs. “Probably the same thing we do every weekend. Pretend like we’re going to have a life and end up here when there’s an inevitable crisis.”

“True,” Cisco sighs. The bottle wobbles and his traitorous heart whispers _tell her, tell her, tell her._ He chickens out. “There’s a new all-you-can-eat sushi place that just opened,” he says instead. “Do you want to try it out tomorrow?”

“That sounds great.” She brushes her hand across his shoulder. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

Cisco looks up at her fond smile and warm eyes and the knot in his stomach unravels a bit. “Night, Cait.”

As soon as her footsteps fade down the hallway, he bangs his head on the bench. How the hell is he going to get through lunch with those feelings welling up in his throat?

Caitlin gets to the restaurant first, and Cisco can see her leaning against the side of the building with her hands in her pockets, blowing intricate whiffs of condensation into the cold air.

“Show off,” he teases when he gets close. She’s not even shivering.

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smirking. “Oh, yes, you can open inter-dimensional breaches, but me making shapes in cold air is showing off.”

He sticks his tongue out at her, and hopes it’s cold enough she can’t spot the flush creeping up his neck. Oh, what the hell, she has heat sense. Of course she knows. “Come on, I know it doesn’t make a difference to you, but I’m freezing.”

After they demolish the first round of rolls, Caitlin kicks Cisco gently under the table. “Why are you being so quiet?”

The words come out before he can reconsider. “Because you make me speechless.” He waggles his eyebrows at the last minute.

Cisco’s pretty sure she would blush if she could. She leans over the table and presses her hand to his forehead. “Do you have a fever? You’re acting really weird.”

He swats her hand away. “I’m not sick,” he says. Maybe there’s something wrong with his self-control. Or maybe that bottle isn’t sealed up as tightly as it should be.

Caitlin’s pinning him with her I-know-you’re-lying look, and Cisco scrambles gratefully for his phone when he hears it ding.

“Metahuman alert,” he says, waving the screen at her. “Looks like we’re cutting lunch short.”

It takes them until well past dinner time to deal with the meta. Cisco collapses onto the sofa in the break room and looks upside down at Caitlin standing in the doorway.

“Burritos?” he asks.

“Sure,” Caitlin says. “But we’re sending Wally to get it.”

Cisco sits up. “Obviously. Your usual?” Caitlin nods and he texts Wally as Caitlin sits next to him, stretching her feet out in front of herself.

Caitlin looks mournfully at her now-tattered Killer Frost shoes. “I need new boots,” she sighs.

“I can reinforce your next pair,” Cisco offers, running a streak of her white hair through his fingers. “You know, it’s kinda weird when your hair is half-and-half like this.”

She raises an eyebrow.

Cisco grins. “I like it. Very hip.”

Caitlin snorts. “Mallen streak chic.”

She rests her cheek against his shoulder and kicks off her shoes to curl her legs up against his thighs and the bottle rolls closer to the edge of the table. This time he keeps his rebellious mouth shut, just tips his head so his nose is brushing her hair and hopes she doesn’t notice that he’s trying to soak in the feeling of her tucked up against him.

They’re both flattened against the back of the couch when Wally swoops in with dinner, and back out, with an “oops, sorry guys” and a massive grin.

“Hey, so I’m exhausted, but also wired. Want to watch a movie?”

He can feel Caitlin wrinkle her nose against his arm. “As long as it’s not here.”

“My place, your choice?”

Caitlin stands up and offers him a hand. “I’ll drive.”

Caitlin chooses _Stardust_ , which is probably one of her favorite movies, and a good second choice to _The Princess Bride_ when Caitlin refuses to watch it for the fifth time in two months.

She watches the movie, starry eyed, and Cisco mostly watches her. She catches him looking, once, and he reaches out so that she scoots under his arm. And then Cisco spends the rest of the movie fighting the urge to just say it. ( _Tell her, tell her, tell her._ )

They hover in the doorway, as Caitlin’s leaving, and Cisco reaches out to brush a stray hair off her face.

“What?” she asks.

“You can search the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful,” Cisco quotes quietly.

Caitlin gapes at him for a moment, hands shaking where they grip the edges of her jacket. Then she snaps her mouth closed. “Out of context,” she replies. But she kisses him on the cheek, and when she pulls away, Cisco has to close his eyes so that he won’t lean forward and kiss her on the lips.

“Just your heart in exchange for mine,” Cisco whispers as he watches her walk down the hall.

On Sunday, Cisco alternates between convincing himself that telling Caitlin wouldn’t be so bad and that telling Caitlin would ruin their friendship and might possibly require Cisco to leave the country.

By Monday morning, the only plan he’s come up with is to avoid Caitlin until he figures out what he’s going to do. It’s easy enough; he just hides in his workshop with his headphones on, and begs off lunch when Caitlin asks if he wants to order anything. By the third or fourth time he’s brushed her off in one day, though, he can tell she’s getting upset. If the crease between her eyes and the way she wrings her hands didn’t give her away, the distinct drop in temperature every time she walks by definitely would.

At four-thirty, Caitlin marches in, snatches his headphones off his head, and slaps them down on the table. “Did I do something wrong that I’m not aware of?” she demands.

“No,” Cisco says slowly, carefully putting down the machine he was working on. “Look, Cait-”

“Don’t ‘look, Cait’ me,” she snaps. “You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

“I know,” he mutters. “I’m sorry.”

She swallows hard and takes a step back, wrapping her arms around her waist. “We’ve been doing really well, I thought. And after Saturday, I thought you might…” she trails off, blinking quickly.

Cisco’s heart plummets to his stomach. “You thought what?”

“You know I’m not a very cuddly or touchy-feely person, but I’m trying to let more people in. And I already trust you, so it’s easy to be that way with you.” She grips her elbows. “Is it making you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Cisco says quietly. “But what did you think after Saturday?”

“I thought that you’d forgiven me, that you didn’t hate me for what I did anymore. I thought that we could finally go back to what it was like before I became Killer Frost.” Her voice is shaking, and there’s a cloud of mist around her hands, but her eyes are hard as amber.

“I never hated you, Caitlin.” Cisco takes a tentative step toward her. “But I don’t know if I want to go back to the way things were before.”

He can almost see her shutting down.

“Hey, wait.” Cisco curls his hands around her elbows, where there’s less of a chance of getting frostbite. The bottle tips. “Let me finish. I don’t want to go back, I want to go forward.” He takes a deep breath; the bottle tumbles off the edge. “I haven’t been uncomfortable, but it’s been difficult. Physical space has always been a kind of barrier I used to stop myself from saying things I shouldn’t. Because if I say those things everything will be really different, and I didn’t want to lose our friendship over it.”

“What things?” Caitlin whispers.

The bottle smashes open on the ground. “I’ve been in love with you for nearly six years.”

The mist vanishes, and Caitlin stares at him, wide-eyed, taking short, shaky breaths.

“Cait?” He slides his hands up her arms.

Caitlin shakes her head. “Stupid,” she mutters, and then she surges forward to kiss him, her mouth warmer than Cisco ever thought it would be. He slides his hands into her hair and sighs into her mouth when she tugs him closer with fistfuls of his shirt.

He lets her slide away slowly, but brushes his thumbs across her cheeks as she catches her breath. “I take it you’re okay with that, then.”

Caitlin rolls her eyes, kisses him hard, once, then takes his hand and pulls him out of the room. “You’re coming with me.”

It’s funny, Cisco always thought his heart would feel empty without the bottle full of love, but instead it’s close to bursting.

**Author's Note:**

> You can send requests or just stop by to chat with me on tumblr @swallowthewhale


End file.
